The Rogue and his Dog
by The-Vegetable-Queen
Summary: When a vengeful mage transforms Beka, she finds herself shunned by friends who don't recognize her. Only when she rescues Rosto does someone see worth in her new form. They work together to rescue Pounce and change her back. RostoxBeka
1. Mongrel

**A/N: This story is **_**nothing**_** like my Maximum Ride/Twilight crossover, for those of you who have me on your Author Alerts. To everyone else who is reading this, I hope you like it! **

All this business began in the dead of fall. The scant few trees to be found in the Lower City were dropping their leaves faster'an a spintry could his britches, and a biting cold wind could be felt blowin' between the houses even on the best of days.

Our Dogs and us Puppies had switched our light summer uniform to the one worn in fall. Our light tunics gave way for long woolen ones and our breeches for thicker trousers. Boots needed to be stuffed with animal fur to keep the frost from carrying off our toes. 'Twas also the purpose of wool gloves tugged past our arm guards, with each finger knitted separately so that we might still be able to hobble our Rats. Sometimes I wished for a hat of the like to cover my ears, but it would be too easy for any scut to pull it over my eyes.

The day had begun normal enough. Aniki, Kora, Ersken, Rosto, and I had been forced to move our breakfasts back indoors because of the cold. No one much mourned this, for it was warmer this way, and none of the others that had been at our breakfasts before wanted to walk all the way to Nipcopper Close at dawn with the chill nippin' at their heels.

My pigeons were still at their antics, what with their thick ruff of feathers to warm their tiny bodies.

A surprise came later in the day before my watch in the form of my brother Will. I'd been crossing the landing between Kora's and Rosto's rooms, heading out to visit my dust spinners, when he burst through the door in all his twelve-year-old eagerness.

"Beka! I've stopped by for a visit." I smiled at him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders.

"What brings you to the Lower City on this coldest of days, Will?" I asked as I drew him to the stairs to sit. My brothers and Lorine had been sweet as twilsey towards me since this past April and the goings on with the Shadow Snake and Crookshank's diggers. I'm just glad that I am finally a sister they can be proud of rather than ashamed of.

"Ladslove and I've come to deliver a message to Ahuda from my lord. He's been wishing that old bird would retire for awhile now." My face whitened.

"The horse is outside?" Will nodded in confusion at my actions. He must've thought me cracked.

I rose off my hunkerbones and dashed to the door, hand on my belt knife. Sure enough, some scummernob was getting too interested in how well Ladslove was tied to the fence post.

"Oi!" I shouted as I leapt towards them. "Keep your mitts off of that horse!"

The Rat took one look at my knife and scuttled into the alley. I couldn't go after and arrest him for looking a bit too closely at a horse, though I wanted to.

Will had followed me out. I turned and said, "You're off your game, brother. You should have remembered that it's never too cold for a Rat. Think on what would have happened if you'd come home without your horse." Mayhap that was a little harsh, but he needed to be reminded of what a cushy life at my lord's house had made him forget. If he was to deliver messages in the Cesspool, he'd best remember who else lived there.

Nothing fazed Will, though. "Sorry, Beka," he said as I led both him and the horse around the back to my landlady's shed. I sighed as we turned back towards my lodgings, Ladslove safely stored.

We'd just settled on the stairs again when Rosto stepped out of his room clad only in breeches. The sight of him spread a blush across my cheeks. Will looked curiously at the newcomer.

"What's all this racket, then?" Rosto inquired, eyeing Will. I was about to answer when a mot's voice followed him out the open door.

"Rosto? What's going on out there?" A hard knot of jealously tightened under my breastbone, but I let nothing show on my face. I reminded myself I'd never canoodle with the Rogue, even if he pined for me.

It did not escape my notice, however, that the mot was most definitely not Aniki. I raised a brow at him. Rosto turned his face away and colored slightly.

Was I seeing things? Had the King of Thieves just _blushed?_

Will, who had sat silently throughout this exchange, did not like being ignored.

"Hello. I'm Will Cooper, Beka's brother. Who might you be?" Rosto recovered quickly enough to make a gallant players bow.

"Ah, another of the Cooper clan! I am Rosto the Piper, King of the Rogue and your darling sister's neighbor." He'd snaked an arm around my waist whilst I wasn't watching during the last bit of his speech. I shoved him off, but not before Rosto's mot entered the hallway.

She was a right pretty gixie, and I could see the attraction. She was wrapped only in a sheet, which exposed honey brown skin. Her hair and wide glims were only a shade darker.

Her features were twisted with anger, though, and I could tell that if she reacted like this to seeing Rosto's arm around the Puppy who lived upstairs, she definitely didn't know about Aniki.

She opened her mouth (to shout something, I'm sure.), but Rosto quickly nipped both of them back inside. I was left outside with flaming cheeks and a suspicious Will.

"Eh… why don't we… go to my room? You haven't seen Pounce in a while, have you?" It was really just to lure him away from the first floor. We could hear the gixie laying into Rosto through the thin walls, not minding the fact that he was the Rogue and she was probably just his one-night-plaything.

Will followed, but he wasn't happy.

"What are you doing living with the Rogue, Beka? And why'd he have his arm around you?" I swallowed hard and stuttered out an explanation.

"_He_ moved in here after me. He's only been the Rogue for a few months. Ahuda and my Dogs want me to stay here, to keep an eye on things, like. Rosto's changing this place into the court once the weather turns again," I paused here, to gather my thoughts. "And… with the arm… Rosto's just like that."

Will seemed to accept this, and flopped to my bed where Pounce lazed. That bugnob cat climbed atop him to begin kneading his chest. Will laughed and petted the silly thing, then sighed.

"I s'pose I'd better go. I was to deliver to Ahuda and come straight back." I hugged my brother goodbye and kissed his cheek as I saw him and Ladslove to the front gate.

"Come visit us on your next day off!" He called over his shoulder.

"I plan on it!" I smiled after my brother as he disappeared around the corner, then turned to see to the shed, Pounce at my heels. My landlady need never know that I'd harbored a horse in her shed, as long as I took care of the evidence.

As I entered the dim building, I saw that I was right to check. Ladslove had left a nice present of scummer for me on the floor. Turning to get the shovel, I was shocked to see a man enter and shut the door behind him.

He was a tall cove, with skin leathery from too much time spent in the sun. His glims were brown, small and watery in his gaunt face. Black hair was scarce covering his nob, it was so thin and greasy. A gaudy red vest and deep blue breeches covered him.

For all his poor looks, he radiated a sense of great power. I knew this to be true when he slammed my poor body into the wall and pressed a shiv to my neck before I'd had a chance to move. Pounce yowled and leapt at my attacker. The cove (who I now know was a mage.) swung a foot out and slammed it into my poor cat's noll as if he'd seen Pounce coming. I let out a wail as Pounce dropped, unmoving. The rusher clapped a smelly palm over my gob.I struggled to reach my own knife or knee him in the cod to make him let go, but his body had me pinned. He leaned his face closer to whisper into my ear.

"_You _are responsible for the death of my Vrinday," he muttered with a learned speech, invoking the name of Crookshank's bought mage, who had killed her own self in prison. "I will see you pay. But I shant kill you, no, no, you must suffer." The man was obviously cracked.

"Oh, yes, a Dog in name and a dog in soul, you are, you are," he said as much to himself as to me. _"And what you are is what you'll be." _

These words were different; they held magic. Even as I thought that, a red fire spread across my body from his hands.

I felt no pain as I shrank.

There was only a tingling sensation as my nob thinned and lengthened, my pearlies sharpened and grew, my ears stretched, my glims widened and turned brown, my tailbone uncurled, and my dark blonde hair spread to the rest of my body.

The mage knew I'd have no bad conscience over ripping his throat out then and there for hurting Pounce. Even as I was changing into a well and true mongrel dog, he scooped up my stunned cat and murmured a spell that sent my flying towards Daymarket.

As a dog.


	2. Cur

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! You guys wrote such nice things, and I'm really glad you liked it. Your reviews really motivated me. Anyways, here's the second chapter.

Chapter two: Cur 

The heavy sound of all the mots and coves rushing around overwhelmed me at once. They shouted over bargains, cut purses, and the like. The sudden change had given me such a shock that I wailed out a high howl of hopelessness.

Only to have some puttock silence me with a swift kick.

I s'pose I should have seen that one coming. Anyone would have done it, what with some cur howling in Daymarket. Knowing that didn't make it hurt any less, though.

I picked my battered self up off of the cobbles where I'd sprawled and hobbled over to an alley that stretched off to the docks. I hadn't quite gotten used to having four legs instead of two, and the going was slow. The people rushed around, spinning me into frenzy as I dodged the less-kind ones who sought to kick me. I was no stranger to the ways of the Cesspool, and I knew that my first priority was to get myself out of the way. Mumpers with nothing to eat sometimes made meals of stray dogs, and cruel lads had sport with torturing them.

Several crates of grain sat sheltered from the frost in the alley. I squirmed between two and hunkered down to wait for the brief lull of the change from Daymarket to Nightmarket.

I was fair addled with what had happened. I was an honest to gods _dog._ Would I ever see my friends, family, and Pounce ever again? Would I even survive the _night?_

I wasn't certain why that sarden tosspot had taken Pounce. I could understand that he'd done what he did to me because of my hand in Kayu's imprisonment. I'd _known_ that all that bragging on my account that my friends had done would get me into hot water someday.

And it definitely had.

I'd also thought the small pocket of heat that I'd burrowed into would be too uncomfortable to sleep in, but apparently this doggy form wasn't as demanding as my human one. My glims slipped close, and I was asleep.

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The rumble of cartwheels clattering past my hidey-hole woke me. I poked my noll out to see Nightmarket in full swing.

A grumble sounded from the back of my throat at the thought of waiting till the end of Nightmarket. I could make all sorts of sounds now, without even meaning to.

I gave a last scan of my surroundings (looking for a more comfortable nook or a way out of my predicament, I'm not sure.).

The crooked god must have had a hand in all the happenings that night. That's the only explanation that my poor doggy nob can come up with as the reason for Ersken and his Dogs' presence in Nightmarket that eve. It was usually the docks and the waterfront homes that his senior Dogs chose to patrol.

_Although_, I reminded myself,_ seeing as I didn't show up for watch this evening in light of my situation, mayhap my Dogs have gone to look for me and asked the others to cover their usual beat._

The thought of someone finding out what had happened to me filled me with a mad joy. I blame my next actions on the wild hope that drove me mad as a midden hen.

With a bark I trotted over to my longtime Puppy friend. His Dogs, Eva and Del, stood a few feet away.

I rubbed my furry snout on his breeches and whuffled the fur poking out the top of his boots.

He looked down at me incredulously. "Sorry," Ersken said, nudging me away with the toe of his boot. "but I've naught to feed you, poor cur."

I believe a bit of my humanity slipped as my hopes were dashed. I sank my pearlies into his leg and raced back towards my alley before he could think to kick me again. His curses followed me.

I kept walking well past my little cranny, deep in thought.

Would I have done the same? Of course. Who wanted a smelly dog to take care of? Ersken was the fourth son of a not-so-wealthy family. He wouldn't have been able to take me in anyway.

And why should he have wanted to? I could not blame him.

The shadows lengthened, and I drew further away from the relative safety of a bustling crowd. Mayhap I'd decided to go with the Black God's Option. How was I to live without my family and friends and Dog work?

That, I believe, is what led me to the back roads near the Court of the Rogue. A cracknob move for even a human to make, but suicidal for a tasty looking dog.

My paws began to ache just as I came upon Rosto.

I was surprised to see the King himself wandering back here. Why wasn't he at the court?

Rosto was one of those coves that only show the feelings that they want you to see. It's a useful talent in his line of business, but I like to flatter myself that I know him well enough to tell his moods even when he'd prefer me not to. There was a tightness about his eyes and jaw that led me to believe he was very upset.

His beautiful black glims were scanning the shadows. What could he be looking for?

I was still hidden partially around the corner. That's how I saw the rushers before Rosto himself.

One gripped a throwing knife, and I barked to warn my friend.

Rosto's head snapped up, and he saw the shiv flying end over end towards his nob. He did something then that I'd never seen or heard of anyone doing before. When it was about a foot from his face, he_ plucked it from the air!_

Then, as if it had been in his hand the whole time, he sent the knife spinning back at its owner. It hit the scummernob in the throat with a wet _thunk. _

The others quickly closed ranks around Rosto.

"Hello, lads. What brings you to this dank alleyway? Plannin' on overthrowin' me? Don't you know that's a job with an audience?" Those tosspots _laughed. _Hadn't they just seen their friend get doused? Hadn't they heard the tales of what Rosto could do? My hackles lifted and I stood at point.

"So sorry, highness," chuckled the ringleader. "The boys an' I jes' thought that this would be so much _better_. More private-like."

One at the end drew his knife seemingly from nowhere.

Now, before I tell the next part, I've got sommat to say: In all my years in the Cesspool and my six months as a Puppy, I have _never _killed someone. All that was about to change, and I can only hope that Mithros and the Goddess will forgive me.

Rosto couldn't have seen him; his eyes were fixed on the leader. I bounded forward and leaped to seize him about the neck. Giving it a vicious twist, we both tumbled to the ground.

This started the brawl in earnest. Rosto took on three at once. The remaining two must not have been too worried about their partners, for they advanced upon me.

"This little scut killed Jerry!" The speaker darted forward and tried to brain me with the butt of his knife, but I twisted out of the way and bit him instead.

"Careful there, Jim. This is a sharp'un..." I butted into the back of Jim's knees, causing him to drop, and tore his throat out while his friend was still talking.

The thug's voice trailed off as he watched. Then he fell upon me with a roar. He sank his knife into my haunches, causing it to stick. He laughed with victory, forgetting he no longer had a weapon.

Feeling the throb in my lower parts and my legs give way, I wrapped my jaws about his leg and hung on with a vengeance as he tried to shake me off.

Red had seeped into the edges of my vision, but I still managed to see the welcome sight of Rosto creeping up behind the cove and slitting his throat.

Then I slipped to the ground, senseless.

A/N: Here's the disclaimer I forgot before:

Disclaimer: I don't own characters and plot events from Terrier. I do, however, own the idea of Beka being turned into a dog. So don't plagiarize/sue me. Please. 


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